Human-factors engineering

Human-factors engineering, also called ergonomics or human engineering, science dealing with the application of information on physical and psychological characteristics to the design of devices and systems for human use.

The term human-factors engineering is used to designate equally a body of knowledge, a process, and a profession. As a body of knowledge, human-factors engineering is a collection of data and principles about human characteristics, capabilities, and limitations in relation to machines, jobs, and environments. As a process, it refers to the design of machines, machine systems, work methods, and environments to take into account the safety, comfort, and productiveness of human users and operators. As a profession, human-factors engineering includes a range of scientists and engineers from several disciplines that are concerned with individuals and small groups at work.

The terms human-factors engineering and human engineering are used interchangeably on the North American continent. In Europe, Japan, and most of the rest of the world the prevalent term is ergonomics, a word made up of the Greek words, ergon, meaning “work,” and nomos, meaning “law.” Despite minor differences in emphasis, the terms human-factors engineering and ergonomics may be considered synonymous. Human factors and human engineering were used in the 1920s and ’30s to refer to problems of human relations in industry, an older connotation that has gradually dropped out of use. Some small specialized groups prefer such labels as bioastronautics, biodynamics, bioengineering, and manned-systems technology; these represent special emphases whose differences are much smaller than the similarities in their aims and goals.

The data and principles of human-factors engineering are concerned with human performance, behaviour, and training in man-machine systems; the design and development of man-machine systems; and systems-related biological or medical research. Because of its broad scope, human-factors engineering draws upon parts of such social or physiological sciences as anatomy, anthropometry, applied physiology, environmental medicine, psychology, sociology, and toxicology, as well as parts of engineering, industrial design, and operations research.

The human-factors approach to design

Two general premises characterize the approach of the human-factors engineer in practical design work. The first is that the engineer must solve the problems of integrating humans into machine systems by rigorous scientific methods and not rely on logic, intuition, or common sense. In the past the typical engineer tended either to ignore the complex and unpredictable nature of human behaviour or to deal with it summarily with educated guesses. Human-factors engineers have tried to show that with appropriate techniques it is possible to identify man-machine mismatches and that it is usually possible to find workable solutions to these mismatches through the use of methods developed in the behavioral sciences.

The second important premise of the human-factors approach is that, typically, design decisions cannot be made without a great deal of trial and error. There are only a few thousand human-factors engineers out of the thousands of thousands of engineers in the world who are designing novel machines, machine systems, and environments much faster than behavioral scientists can accumulate data on how humans will respond to them. More problems, therefore, are created than there are ready answers for them, and the human-factors specialist is almost invariably forced to resort to trying things out with various degrees of rigour to find solutions. Thus, while human-factors engineering aims at substituting scientific method for guesswork, its specific techniques are usually empirical rather than theoretical.

The man-machine model

Human-factors engineers regard humans as an element in systems, and a man-machine model is the usual way of representing that relationship. The simplest model of a man-machine unit consists of an individual operator working with a single machine. In any machine system, the human operator first has to sense what is referred to as a machine display, a signal that tells him something about the condition or the functioning of the machine. A display may be the position of a pointer on a dial, a light flashing on a control panel, the readout of a digital computer, the sound of a warning buzzer, or a spoken command issuing from a loudspeaker.

Having sensed the display, the operator interprets it, perhaps performs some computation, and reaches a decision. In so doing, the worker may use a number of human abilities, including the ability to remember and to compare current perceptions with past experiences, to coordinate those perceptions with strategies formed in the past, and to extrapolate from perceptions and past experiences to solve novel problems. Psychologists commonly refer to these activities as higher mental functions; human-factors engineers generally refer to them as information processing.

Having reached a decision, the human operator normally takes some action. This action is usually exercised on some kind of a control—a pushbutton, lever, crank, pedal, switch, or handle. The action upon one or more of these controls exerts an influence on the machine and on its output, which in turn changes the display, so that the cycle is continuously repeated.

A man-machine system does not exist in isolation; it exists in an environment of some sort. Since the nature of this environment influences the operator’s efficiency and performance, the human-factors engineer must be concerned with such environmental factors as temperature, humidity, noise, illumination, acceleration, vibration, and noxious gases and contaminants.

A man-machine example

Driving an automobile is a familiar example of a simple man-machine system. In driving, the operator receives inputs from outside the vehicle (sounds and visual cues from traffic, obstructions, and signals) and from displays inside the vehicle (such as the speedometer, fuel indicator, and temperature gauge). The driver continually evaluates this information, decides on courses of action, and translates those decisions into actions upon the vehicle’s controls—principally the accelerator, steering wheel, and brake. Finally, the driver is influenced by such environmental factors as noise, fumes, and temperature.

The simple man-machine model provides a convenient way for organizing some of the major concerns of human engineering: the selection and design of machine displays and controls; the layout and design of workplaces; design for maintainability; and the work environment.

Human factors in large systems

No matter how important it may be to match an individual operator to a machine, some of the most challenging and complex human problems arise in the design of large man-machine systems and in the integration of human operators into these systems. Examples of such large systems are a modern jet airliner, an automated post office, an industrial plant, a nuclear submarine, and a space vehicle launch and recovery system. In the design of such systems, human-factors engineers study, in addition to all the considerations previously mentioned, three factors: personnel, training, and operating procedures.

Systems are generally designed for particular kinds of operators. A space vehicle, for example, is designed for a highly select handful of astronauts. Automobiles, on the other hand, are designed to accommodate a wide spectrum of people. In large systems, the specification of personnel requirements is an integral part of systems design.

Personnel are trained; that is, they are given appropriate information and skills required to operate and maintain the system. System design includes the development of training techniques and programs and often extends to the design of training devices and training aids.

Instructions, operating procedures, and rules set forth the duties of each operator in a system and specify how the system is to function. Tailoring operating rules to the requirements of the system and the people in it contributes greatly to safe, orderly, and efficient operations.

Applications of human-factors engineering

The basis of human-factors engineering—the consideration of information about human users in the design of tools, machines, jobs, and work environments—has always been present. One of the oldest and most efficient of human implements, the scythe, shows a remarkable degree of human-factors engineering, undoubtedly reflecting modifications made over many centuries: the adroitly curved handle and blade and the peg grasp for the left hand. All of this is in sharp contrast with the conventional snow shovel, a modern implement of generally poor design that has been blamed for many a wintertime back strain.

The need for a more formal approach to these human problems was created when machines became vastly more complex than they had ever been. High-speed jet aircraft, computers, radar, nuclear submarines, communication satellites, space vehicles—all these are products of the past few decades. The fantastic growth in the number and complexity of machines has created entirely new problems about the use of human operators and the way they can be integrated into systems. Moreover, the solution to these new problems cannot be found in the collective wisdom of society. For example, not long ago no one had any way of predicting with any certainty how astronauts could or would function in a weightless environment. Human-factors engineering is, therefore, a child of the times, born of a mechanized civilization.

Applications of human-factors engineering have been made to such simple devices as highway signs, telephone sets, hand tools, stoves, and to a host of modern, sophisticated complexes such as data processing systems, automated factories and warehouses, robots, and space vehicles.

The experience gained in devising these systems has contributed to the realization that even relatively simple devices raise unexpectedly important questions on human use—questions that conventional engineering practice frequently cannot answer.

The modern push-button telephone handset provides a good example of a relatively simple device that has required a great deal of human-factors engineering. The layout of the keys in the four rows of three buttons, for example, was selected only after extensive tests on a variety of arrangements: circular, two vertical rows of five buttons, two horizontal rows of five, and a diagonal pattern; the arrangement of the numerals and letters on the keys, in the order of left to right and from top to bottom, was chosen as superior to other arrangements such as that used on many desk calculators, in which the numbers increase from bottom to top. The top-to-bottom design decision was not simply a matter of logic; tests showed that people actually made fewer errors and took less time with that arrangement than they did with the calculator arrangement. Other human-factor considerations in the design of the push-button keyset were the size and style of numerals and letters for maximum legibility, the optimum sizes and spacing of the keys, and the proper force-displacement characteristics of the keys to provide tactile feedback or “feel” when the buttons are depressed.

Similar factors were considered in designing the shape of the handset itself. The locations, separations, and angles between the earpiece and mouthpiece were determined so that the assembly would fit comfortably around the greatest number of different human faces; and the weight of the handset was designed to be neither too light nor too heavy. In recent years the careful, “user-friendly” design of conventional telephone sets has become more apparent in contrast to some of the new arrivals in the telephone marketplace, which are generally inferior in design and quality.

The designing of a much more complicated device, such as a space suit, presents more intricate problems. A space suit is a complete miniature world, a self-contained environment that must supply everything needed for an astronaut’s life, as well as comfort. The suit must provide a pressurized interior, without which an astronaut’s blood would boil in the vacuum of space. The consequent pressure differential between the inside and the outside of the suit is so great that when inflated the suit becomes a distended, rigid, and unyielding capsule. Special joints were designed to give the astronaut as much free movement as possible. The best engineering has not been able to provide as much flexibility of movement as is desirable; to compensate for that lack, attention has been directed toward the human-factors design of the tools and devices that an astronaut must use.

In addition to overcoming pressurization and movement problems, a space suit must provide oxygen; a system for removing excess products of respiration, carbon dioxide and water vapour; protection against extreme heat, cold, and radiation; protection for the eyes in an environment in which there is no atmosphere to absorb the sun’s rays; facilities for speech communication; and facilities for the temporary storage of body wastes. This is such an imposing list of human requirements that an entire technology has been developed to deal with them and, indeed, with the provision of simulated environments and procedures for testing and evaluating space suits.

Not all human-factors engineering and design is commercially successful. An example is the typewriter keyboard. Several alternative layouts, which are demonstrably superior from a human-factors point of view, have been proposed, beginning as far back as the 1920s. Despite test results which show that alternative layouts are easier to learn, create less operator fatigue, and permit faster typing, the traditional layout persists and now has been carried over into the design of millions of personal computers. In this case, inertia and resistance to change have been more formidable obstacles to efficient ergonomic design than the design itself.

Social problems

The telephone, the space suit, and the typewriter keyboard are but three out of thousands of examples that might have been selected to show how human-factors engineering has been consciously applied to solve technological problems. The same human-factors principles and methods have also been applied to a variety of social problems, such as individualized computer-assisted instruction, nonlethal antiriot equipment for law enforcement agencies, antiterrorist architecture for public buildings, and people movers for airport and urban transportation departments. The modern concern with man’s relationship to the total environment implies a much-broadened definition of human-factors engineering and an increasing supply of problems for ergonomic engineers in the future.